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The severity of COVID-19 has hit an all time high. In addition to the human toll that the virus has accumulated, the significant commercial impact on various global businesses has been unprecedented. As a result of the pandemic and its consequences on industry operations, companies worldwide have been forced to adapt and adopt new ways of handling the crisis in order to maintain business continuity and cater to the changing needs of their customers.

The situation is no different when it comes to the telecommunications sector. The gargantuan impact of the crisis has certainly shaken the industry to its core, but instead of conceding, companies like Metaswitch have taken significant steps to mitigate its damages early on and begin the process of navigating through these unchartered waters. As the vice president of sales for Asia Pacific at Metaswitch, Ray Tseng’s vast leadership experience has not only prepared him for the most unexpected of circumstances, but also to approach them in a way that prioritises the wellbeing of employees and customer relationships.

“Metaswitch moved early on reacting to the COVID-19 crisis. We quickly shut all offices and enabled every employee to work from home effectively.All employees and departments were fully up and running within 5 business days.We posted guidelines for any potential office visitors, and also made clear how we would still be responding to customers and partners,” Tseng said.

Tseng also explained that, despite the seriousness of the situation, motivation and morale amongst employees have remained high. Additionally, the concept of working from home is not something new for the company. “Teams meet virtually each day, and virtual all hands meetings are also being held.Beyond that, we market and sell products to communication service providers, all of whom are playing a key role in keeping their end users reliably connected and collaborative during this outbreak.”

In terms of business continuation, Tseng stresses the importance of maintaining client relationships and high standards of customer support during these uncertain times. He also added that product delivery remains unaffected. “Given that most of our networking products and solutions are now delivered as software, “shipments” have not been impacted.A high degree of automation in our cloud native virtual network functions also helps to ease remote installation, testing and launch,” he said.

Seeing that almost all the company’s operations are now being conducted remotely, Tseng says that this has not posed a hindrance to business continuity thanks to Metaswitch’s seamless technology portfolio. “We supply our MaX Unified Communications and Collaboration portfolio to communication service providers around the world.Not surprisingly, we use and depend on the same solution internally as well. While many employees were aware of this part of our product portfolio, this might be the first time that EVERY employee is now using the software as part of their daily workflow.And valuing it!”